The Correlation between Emotional Intelligence and Academic Listening Skills of Pre-Service Teachers

In the present study, emotional intelligence and academic listening skill levels of pre-service teachers and the correlations between these variables were determined. Furthermore, the emotional intelligence levels and academic listening competencies of pre-service teachers were also investigated based on the variables of gender, department, and the preference of the department of study. The study group included 361 freshmen pre-service teachers attending the Faculty of Education and the study was conducted with survey method, a quantitative research method. The study data were collected with the “Academic Listening Skill Competency Scale” and “Rotterdam Emotional Intelligence Scale”. In the study, the regression analysis was conducted to determine the causality between emotional intelligence scores and academic listening skill scores revealed significant findings. The study findings demonstrated that “Total Emotional Intelligence” scores of the students reflected above average emotional intelligence levels. It was determined that the academic listening skill competency scores of the pre-service teachers were above average in both scale sub-dimensions and the total scale score. The results of regression analysis showed that the causality between Total Emotional Intelligence and Total Academic Listening Skills was significant.

Measuring University Students’ Perceptions and Attitudes toward Sudden Transition to Online Learning and Academic Self- Efficacy

Online learning has unquestionably shaped contemporary education. The emergence and spread in recent months of the COVID-19 virus, with the attendant preventative implementation of social distancing, has significantly enhanced online learning’s influence. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where strict social distancing precautions were implemented early in the pandemic, thousands of college students were rapidly shifted from conventional to online instructional environments. Now that these students have a semester of experience with online learning, the time is propitious to explore these students’ online learning experiences. One concept in connection with which students’ online learning experiences have not been extensively studied is that of academic self-efficacy. The present study seeks to investigate Jeddah University students’ experiences with online learning in light of their assessments of their academic self-efficacy. Employing a combined descriptive/correlational research design organized around a pair of survey instruments—one designed to query students’ online learning experiences and a second designed to measure their senses of their academic self-efficacy—the present study investigates attitudes of a population of 1,167 Jeddah University undergraduate students randomly selected from the available pool of 16,893 individuals. The study finds that student attitudes with respect to both online learning and self-efficacy are high. It shows, furthermore, significant statistical correlation between students’ highly positive experiences with online instruction and their high senses of their academic self-efficacy. By developing the understanding regarding student attitudes and self-efficacy, this research opens avenues for further research into the connections between online learning and students’ self-perceptions. Moreover, the study’s findings hold significant implications for bettering Saudi Arabian e-learning, an outcome fully in keeping with the policy goals outlined in the 2030 vision.

Opinions of Teacher Candidates on Inclusive Education: A Parallel Mixed Method Study

In this study, teacher candidates’ attitudes, self-efficacy perceptions towards inclusive education, and their situation towards in-class practices were determined. A total of a hundred thirty three pre-service teachers participated in the research voluntarily. The study was designed according to the parallel mixed methods research in which both quantitative and qualitative data (QUAN + QUAL) were used together. As data collection tools, “Attitude Scale towards Inclusive Education”, “Self-Efficacy Scale for Inclusive Education” and “In-class Practice Scale for Inclusive Education” were used. In addition, during the collection of qualitative data, teacher candidates were asked to complete the statement, “In my opinion, inclusive education is like…. because….” To determine their metaphorical perceptions. When the results of the study were examined, teacher candidates, it was determined that the perceptions of self-efficacy towards inclusive education and the concern for personal equipment differ in terms of various variables. In addition, the participants chose the positive metaphors that they produced for inclusive education. Among these metaphors, respect for differences, acceptance of diversity is expressed as coexistence due to the structure of inclusive education that unites society.

Ethnocentrism, Theoretical Awareness, and Intellectual Resistance in University Students’ Reading Behaviour

This paper discusses the insightful and illuminating findings of teaching critical reading within the theoretical framework of critical pedagogy. More specifically, this paper examines the impact of a critical-reading course on students’ reading skills and beliefs about discourse production and interpretation. The course was conducted according to the principles of transformative participatory action research and, thus, a corpus of 50 essays, written by a convenience sample of 25 post-graduate students in the pre-test and post-test phases, was analyzed to examine the effect of the course on students’ reading-habits and their representations of different discourses. Pretest findings showed that most students used to think that discourses are innocent and ideology-free and that reading a text consists in understanding its general idea, extracting its writer’s viewpoint, making sense of its vocabulary, and paraphrasing it. As far as text’s function is concerned, most students used to believe that a text’s basic function is delivering information. In addition, most of them were unaware of the fact that a text has ideological and socio-political functions. Post-test findings revealed that students’ discourse awareness and reading habits have become more critical and developed at two levels: the worldview level and the meta-language level. The t-test statistics suggest that there is a significant difference of p˂.001 between students’ reading scores before and after the intervention. Therefore, the null hypothesis which says that there is no significant difference between studying critical reading from a critical pedagogy perspective and studying it from a functional or conventional perspective is false.

Media as a Learning-Teaching Tool in the Context of Media Literacy from Turkish Language Teacher Candidates’ Perspective

This study aims to reveal the Turkish language teacher candidates’ opinions about the media as a learning-teaching tool in the context of media literacy. It has been conducted utilising the basic qualitative research pattern, one of the qualitative research types, with twenty participating teacher candidates studying in the last year of their university education. In the study, a semi-structured interview form is employed as the data collection tool. The collected data are analysed based on the content analysis method, one of the qualitative analysis methods. The results obtained in the study have shown that social media has a central place in Turkish teacher candidates’ media perception; when they were asked about the media tools for teaching, they answered the internet and YouTube primarily. The participants stressed that the media as a teaching tool offers teachers alternative ways and facilitates the educational process. For these reasons, they consider the media a usable teaching tool. The media tools they use the most in their own learning processes are the internet, YouTube and Instagram. The teacher candidates plan to use media tools while performing their jobs. Moreover, the teacher candidates, who consider utilising media tools in the learning-teaching process necessary, plan to advise their students to learn through media.

Fourth Grade Primary School Students’ Critical Writing Skill Levels

In this study, it was aimed to determine the critical writing skill levels of fourth grade Primary School students. This study is a quantitative research and was designed in a scanning pattern. The study group of the research consists of 175 students attending in the fourth grade of three different Primary Schools, which were determined by the purposive sampling method, by taking into account their gender and socioeconomic status. The research data were obtained as a result of the evaluation of the critical writings written by the students in the study group with using the critical writing rubric. The obtained data were presented as descriptive statistics (frequency, min. and max. values, arithmetic mean, standard deviation) with the help of statistical program, and analyzed with independent samples t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). As a result of the research, it was determined that the students’ scores on critical writing skills were generally at a low level. In general, students are insufficient in the dimensions of planning, presenting evidence and persuading, questioning, and multidimensional thinking of critical writing; fluency and clarity and shape/form dimensions were found to be sufficient. In addition, it was determined that student achievements differed significantly according to socioeconomic level (in favor of high socioeconomic level) and gender (in favor of female students).

Researching Identity in Language Teachers – Current Challenges and Implications

Language teacher identity has been at the forefront of pedagogical research in recent years; this has become particularly important due to the demographic changes seen throughout the world since 2015; since then, there have been significant changes in the cultural landscape of schools in general and language teaching in particular, which presents unique challenges for teachers in their process of identity construction. This study aims to explore the transformative nature of language teacher identity in two settings: teaching in online classrooms in one’s home country, and teaching in online classroom abroad. The research will explore how cultural identity shapes an educators’ relationship with students, how one’s own cultural identity influences methodological and pedagogical choices, how these can improve literacy in the young adult classroom, as well touching upon the relevance of cultural identity is in a developing teacher. The findings revealed a general consensus on the need to gear pedagogigcal practices towards a student-centered approach; they further showed a general split in how teachers view the role that cultural identity plays in the classroom: while some felt that local cultures hindered their approach to teaching, others felt it helped build rapport and understanding between teachers and learners.

Examining the Effect of Using Short Films on Visual Reading Skills

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of using short films in Turkish lesson on visual reading skills of 7th graders. Mixed methods design was utilized. The quantitative part of the study was formed by an experimental pattern with pretest-post-test control group, and the qualitative part was a case study consisting of observation and interview processes. The participants of the study were 46 7th graders from a public secondary school in Erzurum, Turkey. In the quantitative part of the study, the achievement test was used as a data collection instrument. In the qualitative part, observation and interview forms were used for data collection. Descriptive analysis studies were conducted for pre and post test scores in data analysis. As a result of the analysis of the data obtained from the quantitative and qualitative data collection tools, the use of short films in Turkish lessons increased the students’ interest, participation, success, and sensitivity towards their environment; it was found that it improved the visual reading skills significantly, at a high impact level and permanently. At the end of the research, it was concluded that the use of short films in Turkish lesson was effective in the formation of a fun classroom environment, active participation of students in the lesson, gaining awareness and sensitivity towards their environment, and improving their visual reading skills significantly and permanently.

The Doctoral Viva: Questions for, with and to Candidates (or supervisors)

This paper presents questions within a consideration of the nature of doctoral viva examinations from an international viewpoint. We argue that preparation for the viva should begin early - certainly not just immediately after the thesis submission. Key viva questions can be used in a preparatory process with supervisors over time to develop candidates’ thesis thinking and research capability. The paper gives guidance and advice for candidates (and for supervisors to help candidates) about how to prepare practically for the viva. More importantly this should help them to enter the mindset of examiners. This enables candidates to enter fully into discussion of a thesis confidently and enthusiastically, to share their research thinking in a focussed manner which takes broad issues into account. In a detailed Appendix, we share a repertoire of 60 examples of generic viva questions which are commonly asked in many international contexts, together with guidance about answers in brackets. Using these iteratively with supervisor help, candidates are encouraged to generate their own specific questions as part of a formative research process. Viva preparation guided by key questions can begin early as an inherent part of the research-and-writing process: questions are first for candidates, then developed with candidates, and then finally in a viva put to candidates. The questions are a framework for supervisors, too, who are often examiners themselves.

Morphological Verb Valency Driven Errors of Secondary School Students

The aim of the current study is to determine the distribution of verb valency-driven errors of secondary school students. To this end, this study is framed as a survey research. The sample of the study consists of 200 secondary school students in three schools with different socio- economic levels. The content and teaching of morphological verb valency and the problems encountered were elaborated in the light of Turkish teachers’ views. The data of the study were compiled through document analysis. Frequency analysis was employed to determine the occurrence of morphological verb valency driven errors. Besides, content analysis was used to analyse teachers’ views. The research findings revealed that secondary school students made verb valency driven errors at 393 times while using 145 different verbs. The mean value of verb valency driven errors per student was 1.96. Furthermore, the verbs with the most common verb valency driven errors were respectively as follows: çık- (to leave), al- (to take), bul- (to find), söyle- (to tell), yaşa- (to live), git- (to go), gör- (to see), ver- (to give), çöz- (to solve) and gel- (to come). Teachers, however, stated that students had difficulty in analysing and writing morphemes in morphological verb valency, and they, in particular, made verb valency driven errors in long sentences in writing and speaking skills. Moreover, activities towards knowledge and comprehension in terms of words and sentences are inadequate in respect to such cognitive processes such as synthesis and evaluation of texts. Therefore, it is recommended that teaching of morphological valency should be integrated with language skills in order to minimize morphological verb valency driven errors that have an impact upon literacy skills of students in their mother tongue.